La Fiesta Tech, Season 2 - Stella & Tank
“What you’re doing is called dancing, correct?”
Tank jumped. He wasn’t usually one for dancing in public, but he’d thought he was the only one awake. (When you were the son of a military family, you learned to be up at the crack of dawn. Unless you didn’t, like Ripp.) “Uh… sure. What of it?”
“I was wondering if you could teach me.”
“It’s pretty easy, really. You just move your body in time with the music.”
“Like this?”
“Yeah, that’s it. So how come you’ve never danced before?”
“We don’t have ‘dancing’ on my home planet.”
“Wait, what? Your ‘home planet’? So you’re not a hybrid, you’re the real deal?”
“Perhaps once, but no longer. I have left that life behind me. For the duration of our acquaintanceship, I would prefer you thought of me not as an alien, but just as a girl.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I never thought about it before, but what’s your species actually called? What’s your planet called, come to think of it?”
“Oh!” She emitted a series of beeps and clicks. “As you can see, our language is not pronounceable to most humans. When you began calling us ‘alien’ we decided to just…”
“Roll with it?”
“Yes!”
Stella had said not to think of her as an alien, but it was pretty impossible to forget when she had that green skin glaring at him. Nevertheless, he was becoming fond of her. Not that he wasn’t still fearful of aliens, but she’d renounced her entire heritage, and watching her learn the ways of human culture was, well, kind of endearing.
Little looks.
“Gasp! Tank, look behind you!!!”
“What?”
“Hehehehehee! I have hit the ‘bull’s eye’!”
Tank found himself laughing. Which would be unremarkable, were it not for the fact that Tank Grunt hadn’t laughed since elementary school.
“Hello, Tank.”
“Hey Stella. Need anything?”
“Yes, in fact. I was wondering if you could teach me how to slow dance.”
“Ha. You’re asking the wrong Grunt, in that case. I’ve never slow danced in my life.”
“Well, perhaps we could learn together? It looks like fun.”
“Sure, I guess.”
“Thank you. I’ve been trying to immerse myself in sim culture and watching a lot of your earth movies, you see.”
“Well, that’s cool, but real life isn’t always like in the movies.”
“It isn’t? But it all has been so far.”
Tank privately wondered what the hell kind of movies Stella had been watching if reality was in any way lining up with what she saw on the screen. It never had for him.
“Tank.”
“Yeah?”
The kiss took Tank by surprise, and he found himself going along with it without really thinking about it. She smelled faintly of bubblegum, he noticed, and wondered vaguely if that was an alien thing or a Stella thing.
Wait, wait. Stella was an alien.
“I can’t do this.”
“Oh?” Stella looked confused. “I’m sorry, I- is this not how it works?”
“No, it’s not that, I just, I gotta go. I’ll see you around, okay?”
“…Tank?”
“Hello, Tank? I’d just like to talk about last night, if that’s okay? I haven’t seen you all day…”
No response. Maybe he was just busy studying.
“Ah, Tank! I was hoping it’d run into you-”
“Save it. I’m transferring to SSU tomorrow morning.”
“What? Why?”
“Don’t try to contact me, okay? I’m sorry.”
Johnny joins the frat as a pledge and Micky goes on a hot date! You can tell I hate fraternities because those are all the pictures I bothered taking.
Zoe, no!